Last Saturday, I went to Louisiana to get Jacob for Christmas. I knew it was supposed to be raining, but I wasn't at all thrilled to find that it was raining the entire way there. There were long stretches of the trip where visibility was down to about 100 ft.

Once I got to Jacob's house, it wasn't bad at all. It was 73 degrees, a full 40 degrees warmer than Missouri, and the rain was down to a slight drizzle.

We got him loaded up and we hit the road about 3:15. We were just pulling into the south side of Ruston, Louisiana when it got very dark very fast. My phone started blowing up with a tornado warning telling us to take shelter immediately. And, it wasn't kidding. No sooner than I got the phone back in my pocket, the top of a large tree broke off and landed right in the highway about 100 yards in front of us. A diesel Chevy that it landed in front of wasn't able to avoid it and smashed it into a mess of debris. Two other cars traveling right along side the truck ran over parts of it, as well. All three vehicles almost simultaneously darted off the highway in separate directions.

I straddled the smallest pieces of branches and flew into town looking for somewhere to take shelter. Another large tree limb blocked the road ahead of us, and I spotted a Chinese restaurant that was open to our right. As I jerked the car into the parking lot, I told Jacob to run inside as soon as I got the car stopped. We both got inside the restaurant and out of the increasing speed of the winds just in time for the power to go out. We were all sort of standing there watching the windows when the front door got sucked open briefly only to be slammed back closed by the wind. The owner locked the doors to keep it from repeating.

I now know what all those people on the news after a tornado are talking about when they say, "It came out of nowhere." It was 3:27 when we rounded a bend in the highway and could see Ruston up ahead while we noticed a peculiar dark sky to our left, the west. The weather alert came through my phone at 3:28. And everything I described above happened before I called Jodi from within the safety of the restaurant, a call that my phone logged at 3:30.

It was pretty wild. But, just as quickly as the storm arrived, it equally as quickly calmed back down. The weather map from my phone showed a bright red cell that was now east of us, so we got back out on the road. Half the town of Ruston was out of power, including the stop lights. Two buildings over from the restaurant we took shelter in had a large pane glass window broken out. And, we could see all the duct work hanging down from the ceiling inside. There were lots of tree limbs down and many signs had been blown over and were laying in parking lots or along the sides of the street.

I'm glad to have made it back without any major issues and just minor drama. I'm thankful for all the prayer from our friends and family who were notified of our situation. It certainly was heard as the rest of the trip was a piece of cake, a welcome change from the incredibly wet trip down. This YouTube video is an overly-dramatic group of storm chasers who appear to have watched the movie Twister too many times, but parts of the video do accurately depict what was going on weather-wise where we were. It also has a small clip of some damage in Monroe.

ATTENTION! If you downloaded the World Cup spreadsheet before June 21, 2014 then you have a copy that has errors. A fixed version is now available for download here with scores filled out up to June 21 or for a blank version download this one.

I apologize for the calculation error. Technically, it's not my fault. I originally built this spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel 2003. Since the first round is a point system that breaks ties in points by goal difference and ties in goal difference by total goals scored, the formulas to determine the ranking for each group are surprisingly difficult to write. I wrote formulas with multiple nested formulas within them. Microsoft reduced the number of formulas for which you can nest within other formulas in Microsoft Excel 2010. So, the formulas were logically correct but disallowed by the newer version of Excel that I am using. As a result, the ranking of teams within Group play were not calculated and no teams were pulled over into Round 2. Thanks, Microsoft, for that "improvement" (eye roll).

UPDATE: For a free downloadable and printable poster of the brackets, go to my newest post and click on the link for the download.

FIFA World Cup 2014 is coming up and this guy is getting excited. The weekend before last was the draw and so the official schedule has been filled and is ready to go.

So, without hesitation, I built my Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to keep up with all the games. It's in the same user-friendly interface as it's been when I originally designed it for World Cup 2006. I updated it a little bit, but I was afraid to get into the formulas too much because I keep getting a warning about too many arguments being nested within single cells. Apparently, I was able to do more within a single cell in Microsoft Excel 2003 than in the 2010 version I have now.

Anyway, it works like a charm with no more interaction from the user than entering the final scores of each game. In Round 1, it does all the math for you on the fly in regards to team points, total goals scored, total goals scored against, and total goal difference. Basically, every scenario that might possibly be used to determine final ranking in Round 1 to see who makes it into Round 2 and who doesn't.

In Round 2, in the event of a tied game going into penalty shots for a tie breaker, a box pops up to allow the user to enter the penalty shots results.

It's a fun way to follow along with all the games. Otherwise, with 64 games being played in roughly a month, it's easy to just miss a good portion of the action.

I considered marketing this sheet of mine, selling it online for download for something like a dollar. But, after some investigation, I found out that FIFA holds exclusive rights for a lot more than I thought. I would have been infringing on the intellectual property rights of FIFA had I done something like that. Perhaps, on Microsoft, as well.

So, here it is for free. Also, it will be available in the 'Downloads' drop-down menu at the top of this blog. FIFA can't sue me for distributing it this way. Well, they can, I guess, but they won't win since I am adhering to their legal requirements.

I'm receiving no monetary benefits in the distribution of this file, nor any other form of compensation.

I'm not using this distribution as a means to advertise any product or company.

The file contains no copy-written or otherwise protected images belonging to FIFA or any of its affiliates.

The file does not contain excessive words or phrases registered as intellectual property of FIFA or any of its affiliates.

The purpose of distribution of this file is to excite a fan base and increase the number of individuals watching the World Cup in 2014, which is FIFA's own product.

P.S. FIFA, if you are reading this, don't get mad. You don't want to sue me. You want to hire me.

I recently got into an online discussion that prompted me to do some studying. The discussion was about Luke 6:28-30, or at least it was initially. As all conversations do, this one took many turns. What started as a question (evidently not meant to be answered) became many statements of position from both the question's poser and a couple people, myself included, who read the question.

Let's start with the scripture (NIV):

28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.29 If
someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone
takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

What wound up being supposed in the discussion was the following in no particular order:

that these three verses apply to martyrdom

that, as Christians, we have no right to defend or protect ourselves since we are not our own but have surrendered ourselves to God

The above list would have been longer, but every other argument made was purposefully open-ended or written with a built-in, locked and loaded disclaimer. So, I haven't included them here, nor do I need to. The above is subject enough for one blog.

So, let's start with the first point. Jesus doesn't mention death anywhere in these three verses. Therefore, I can safely conclude that any application of these verses to martyrdom or any death for that matter must be backed by other verses that do talk about death and must be supported by the overarching theme of the Bible. None of this entire chapter speaks of death, save for one place, Luke 6:9.

9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

The only place in this chapter that Jesus mentions death, He makes it clear that to save life is good and to destroy it is evil. The application of this is that the preservation of one's own life and of the lives around oneself is good (And, what is good but God alone?) and that destroying life (even your own) is sin.

Now, I'm not against pulling more meaning out of scripture than what it literally says. On the contrary, I'm ceaselessly amazed at the amount of new revelation that comes out of some of the same verses that I have been reading all my life. How God fit all that applicable and meaningful teaching into simple passages cracks me up to say the least. But, of course, it's always new. It's His word. It's alive. However, we have a tendency to impose our own beliefs upon scripture. We can, will, and do come to the Bible with a set of ideals that we already hold to be true. It's like wearing a pair of colored glasses with spots on them. The Bible will all be colored a certain way and the spots will conveniently cover up the parts of it that challenge your predetermined belief. So, the challenge is to remove the glasses first, and then read the Bible. This way, God can teach you what He wants you to believe.

That said, it's important to always use scripture to interpret scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17). I like new teaching being mined from God's word, but it must follow the theme of other clear biblical teaching. Concerning the first point, that Luke 6:28-30 also refers to martyrdom, I ask how. It was suggested in the conversation that these commands from Jesus would also include the scenario if someone was trying to kill you. Now, I don't read that in there nor do you, I'm sure, but it was suggested that this was "the heart" of the teaching, reading between the lines, if you will. Note, that Jesus was doling out commands in this passage, directions on how to live according to His teaching. So, then, since He doesn't specifically say to willfully allow someone to kill you or others around you if they so desire, does another passage in the Bible specifically say it? Does another passage even support the idea? Or, perhaps, do other areas support protecting your life and the lives of others around you?

In the conversation, the word 'radical' kept being used. It was assumed that Jesus was teaching an even more radical truth here than what He was clearly saying. In other words, it was believed that He was saying one radical thing but implying an even more radical thing. Why would Jesus do that? If Jesus was giving out radical teaching (which He was) why do you suppose that He was saving the "really radical" teaching for only those who read between the lines? Was He afraid that His disciples would be offended by the "really radical" commands so He just gave them the "moderately radical" ones instead? That doesn't sound like Jesus. Afraid to offend? No, not Jesus.

Sometimes I wonder if we adrenaline-junkie-Americans have a desire to make Jesus even more radical than He is, as if we have a stronger desire to be radical than we do to be Christ-like. Isn't giving to someone while they are robbing you radical enough? Isn't loving your enemies, loving that co-worker who seems to stop at nothing to try and get you fired, radical enough? Isn't praying for blessings for that neighbor of yours who is conjuring up curses against you radical enough? Make no mistake, Jesus's teachings are radical.

Ok. Moving on to the second point. This seems obvious enough not to have to compile an argument against, but maybe it's necessary after all. First, I think that anyone who has read the Bible at all will concede that God is said throughout it to be our defense and our strength, so much in fact that we can all agree on that. We can conclude from this that it is good to be defended. Where disagreements arise in whether it should always be left completely to the Lord our God to be our defense. Arguments are made that to defend ourselves shows a lack of trust in God. Or, in the scenario of the conversation that prompted this blog, arguments are made that say as Christians we are not our own and that we have given up our right to defend ourselves. But, what does the Bible (God, himself) say about our responsibilities in regards to our self-defense and the defense of others in our care?

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for
their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an
unbeliever. - 1 Timothy 5:8

" But, this is about working to provide for one's family, not the physical protection of them!" Maybe, but notice that God is our provider, Jehovah Jireh, (Luke 12:24) and yet we all still work jobs. God even commands us to work and provide for our family, even calling those that don't "worse than an unbeliever". Ouch.

2 “If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed;3 but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed. - Exodus 22:2-3

The reason that you were guilty in the daylight was that you would be able to see and discern that it was a thief not a murderer or a rapist and while you were expected to defend yourself and your family, you weren't allowed to kill over the potentially lost possessions. But, in the pitch black of night, you were also expected to defend yourself and family and even acquitted of guilt if the thief died since there would have been no way to discern the intruder's intentions.

14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” - Nehemiah 4:14

Fight in defense of your family and your homes. That's pretty clear. And, what were they doing throughout this book? Building a wall of defense around their city. And, God was good with that.

11 The
king’s edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and
protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate the armed men of any
nationality or province who might attack them and their women and
children,[b] and to plunder the property of their enemies. - Esther 8:11

This came from the king's edict, yes, but from the direction and unfolding of events that God set in motion, of course.

36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. - Luke 22:36

Yes, Jesus said this. Jesus also rebuked Peter a few hours later when Peter used the sword to cut off the man's ear during Jesus' arrest. But, note that Jesus told Peter to put the sword back where it belonged, sheathed on his side. Jesus could have told Peter to throw away his sword, but He didn't.
He told him to put it back where it belonged, on his side, for its proper
use. Jesus had already told his disciples, Peter included, that He was to die for it was the plan for the Son of Man to do. Jesus said that He could call on the Father and that a throng of angels would come at His defense, but that He must drink from the Father's cup. Why, you ask? To save all of humanity, of course. To come to our defense. Jesus, the King of Kings, didn't need Peter to come to His defense. That wasn't a proper use for Peter's sword. Jesus also explained that "living by the sword" or putting too much trust in it was also a bad thing and it would lead to death "by the sword".

43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. - Matthew 24:43

Jesus was speaking about the second coming. He used this scenario as an illustration to say that He would come at an unknown time therefore always be ready. Note that, even to Jesus, it was an understood thing that you would defend your life, your family, and your home. And, why wouldn't it be understood? Scripture taught them that it was not only alright to do but that it was commanded of them, a responsibility of God's people to do for themselves and others around them.

23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another... - Matthew 10:23

You mean, Jesus didn't want them to stick around until someone put them to death? Of course not. He wanted them to continue their ministry in proclaiming the good news to as many cities as possible before the inevitable happened.

I think I've aptly made the point. It's good to defend life. We are to die to ourselves in the sense that we are to give our lives to God for God to direct and guide our lives as He wills, not by our own will. But, God, doesn't want us to give up our lives needlessly. He wants us to do His work here on earth. Jesus already died for us, so that we don't have to. He expects us to live and continue His good work.

P.S. - To answer the question that the title of this blog answers: Yes, sometimes. Our goal to be Christ-like is to always be thinking about other people and apply love and the sharing of the gospel in both words and practice whenever possible. This can include, as Luke 6:28-30 tells us, even while being robbed. For example: Suppose John were robbed today (it's cold outside). If someone demanded his wallet, he could potentially make a lasting impression on them by offering them his coat, as well, and saying "you look like you might be cold." This shows that John cares about them as an individual despite what they are doing to him at the moment. John should report the theft afterwards since he doesn't want to create an environment that enables people to sin without any consequence. But, John should restrain himself from feeling good if the robber gets caught or bad if the robber doesn't. Also, this is assuming that John has assessed the situation and doesn't feel that he is any grave danger. Otherwise, I would advise John to flee or fight. And, based on the above biblical reasoning, I would say that it would be well within God's approval for doing so.

In a matter of only about 3 weeks, we've managed to get the deck from just a plan in our heads to almost a completed physical reality. Considering the fact that I haven't taken any time off of work for its construction, I think 3 weeks is a really short amount of time for such a large construction project.

Despite all of our best efforts, though, we can't do a whole lot about the weather. Now, I didn't mind being out there working in the cold too much. But, I can't work very well while the whole thing is covered up in snow. I keep waiting for the snow to melt away. This is the Ozarks, right? I mean, it was snowing yesterday, isn't it supposed to be 60° today? This hasn't happened. And, it doesn't look like there is much of a melting day coming up in the immediate weather forecast.

So, maybe, I'll go out there this evening and sweep it off all proper like and then when the melting does come it might actually clear off what I can't get to budge easily.

So, sorry, I haven't been able to bring any more awesome updates. We'll just have to see what happens.

Yesterday, was Jodi's and my tenth yeariversary. I've explained what a yeariversary is before, I'm sure, but to those of you who don't know: it's the anniversary to the day we met. It started with weekiversary then transitioned to monthiversaries. You get the idea.

Why do we celebrate that day, you ask? Probably, because it's pretty much when we fell in love. I say 'pretty much' because love is more than just a moment of infatuation. It's more than just a connection being made. It's not a moment in time, so to speak. You know exactly when you fell down the stairs. Falling in love isn't so easy to pinpoint to a specific moment in history. So, we use the day we met since our love most certainly started that day and only grew from there.

To celebrate, we took the children with us out in the cold and snow to downtown. We had some yummy sushi at Izumi Hatake. We ordered:

California Roll

Philly Roll

Philly Tempura Roll

Rainbow Roll

Jurassic Park Roll

Passion Roll

Seaweed Salad

A big order, yes, but that's how we roll. Get it? It's our new favorite sushi place in town. Ralph and Gail Irwin turned us on to it. Our favorite was the Philly Tempura Roll. It's probably also the least good for you. It's fried. But, it's super good. The Rainbow Roll was kind of too sweet. Jurassic Park is great. I've yet to have a bad Jurassic Park anywhere. Kai and Haruno also make the Jurassic very well. The Passion was good, but maybe not our favorite. It has some great sauce with it, though. Lyric liked the California and the Philly. It turns out that Ezra is just a California girl. She didn't like the creamed cheese or the salmon on the Philly Roll.

We ended the night with a comedy on our new comfy furniture.

I love my wife. She's the coolest, funniest, and hottest person I know. The last ten years have been nothing short of awesome. Looking forward to eternity with her.

P.S. It's also the day that I bought my '59 Ford truck. I pretty much love it, too. :)

So, I couldn't resist. Once I got to thinking about the photo that I could take from atop the garage roof, it was all over. I knew that I could capture the whole thing and I hadn't really done that yet from any previous angles.

So, I rather nonchalantly scaled the roof to our outdoor closet, quickly walked across the top of our garden wall, and stepped up onto the roof of the garage to get this photo. Getting down, however, proved to be a bit more difficult. My old fear of heights tried to revive itself. It took me close to a full minute to get myself to step down the 5 or 6 inches onto the wall from the garage roof. I seriously considered just jumping down to the driveway. Why does that seem safer in my head than coming down the same way I got up? Either way, I worked it out. I told myself to quit being stupid and just did it. And, you know what? It went fine.

I took this photo as soon as I got home from work yesterday, so it shows zero of the work that I did last night, but at least I took the photo in the daylight this time. Last night, I got the two other sections of privacy fence installed. I still have to put the rails on top of all four sections, though, so the privacy fence isn't done just yet. I also, got two of the six sections of railing done. They turned out nice and sturdy, just as a good railing should be.

So, in the next illustration that I GIMP'd together, the red is what I got done last night that the above photo doesn't show. The blue items are the things that I have yet to do. So, in addition to the railings and privacy fence top rail, I also need to build a gate for the small north staircase to match the privacy fence. (If you click on either photo in Firefox or IE, it will bring up the photo large and let you toggle back and forth between the two. Pretty cool.) And, I'll be pulling off some of the siding so that I can wire up and install some outdoor lights, one on each side of the back door. I wasn't going to originally, but I think that I will also install some permanent wiring in conduit and run a GFCI outlet to the tree. We'll run some white Christmas lights around the tree for ambiance lighting and the outlet will let us do that. I will even run it through a switch from inside so we can turn it on and off like a porch light. Also, I will run some speaker wire hookups just below the soffit on the back room so that we can play music from the stereo inside and select the outdoor speakers when we want to listen to music out there.

Just as the title states, the deck is really coming together. I apologize for the fuzzy photos. They were all taken in the dark.

As of last night, I managed to knock out the last of the stairs. Then, I got a great start on the privacy fence. I got two sections done (minus the top part that will come later). As you can see, Jodi was adding the first privacy boards to the fence and having a lot of fun doing it. I love my home renovator wife. :)

This is the part that I really like, because up until now, I've essentially been building a platform pedestal for us to be easily spotted from the street. This fence makes the whole thing seem like a personal haven. And, I also feel that it makes it feel bigger. I thought that maybe the opposite would be true, but it's not.

These next two photos were literally taken in the dark at about 6:20 this morning. I put the Canon on a tripod and had to set the shutter at 4 seconds with my lowest aperture lens, the 50mm. I apparently moved the camera on the stair photo, but the fence photo came out alright.

No, the house in the background is not on fire. They have a back porch light that lit up their backyard tree and the long exposure exaggerated its effect. Also, in the photo, you get to see our brand new deck fire pit. We bought it off of Craigslist. It's not even been used and we got it for $30! I'm guessing that the reason it hadn't sold earlier was because the seller called it a "fire pitt". By doing so, it wouldn't have come up in searches. Thankfully, I searched just "fire" anticipating that some people might call them different things. To the owner's credit, she was Asian and English was, no doubt, a second language. Also, there was no photo in the ad. She texted me photos at my request and I was like, "Yes, please!"

When we get the deck done, I plan on climbing up on my garage roof for a great all-encompassing photo of the finished result. Until then, I'll try to remember to take photos while it's still daylight.

Sorry for slacking off with the updates. This Thanksgiving was a success, I believe. We hosted it at our house for my wife's family. We also had some friends of ours and their children with us since they have no family in town. It was fun and there was some great food, as always. I ate a nice lunch and then found myself maintaining a fullness through 5 o'clock through random bites of the various dishes every 10 to 15 minutes.

We got quite a bit accomplished with the deck over the long holiday weekend, though, not quite as much as I would have liked. I'm notorious for underestimating the time it takes to do a home improvement project. This is why I would make out to be a terrible contractor. I would underbid labor every time.

All the decking is down. Woo hoo! (Forgive me. These photos are from Thanksgiving morning. I haven't taken any since.) And, now I'm working on the stairs from the yard to the deck. It took pretty much all of yesterday, unnecessarily. When I laid out my stringer plan for the lower stairs, I drew them correctly but then wrote the wrong measurement on my drawing. So, I wound up making the top step too deep, not compensating for the fact that I was using the existing deck skirting as my top riser. So, I got the stairs built and realized that there wasn't enough overhang to allow for closed risers. Well, that's not a compromise my wife we could live with. ;)

As much as I love undoing something, I undid my stair construction, disconnected all my stringers trimmed off the extra 1 1/2", and reinstalled all of them. I was planning on finishing that set of stairs last night, but I broke my last driver bit. Speaking of which, the Irwin impact driver bits I bought are great. I commend them despite the fact that I have made my way through all four that I bought (broke 3, lost 1). I've been pretty abusive with them and they have all performed wonderfully until my abuse finally became too much for them, to no real fault of their own. Like anything, they have a lifespan, but a very long one, comparatively speaking.

I really like how the decking looks with the custom "tree-shaped" hole, especially with all the herringbone pattern lines of connection radiating outward from it. For the record, because everyone feels the need to warn us of tree growth, the joists are 6-8 inches away from the tree. The closest deck boards are actually being held up by false joists that are connected to the adjacent deck boards. Therefore, when the tree finally reaches the deck boards in a few years, they can easily be pulled up by removing a few screws, trimmed, and put back down for several more years of enjoyment. It shouldn't become an issue with the joists for 15 years at the very minimum.

As a little side note bonus, here's a not-very-exciting before and after of the bottom of our front door. Clearly, we were in need of a new weather strip for the bottom of the door. I wonder how long it will take to save in utilities the $9.99 it cost me for the strip? I know. This was totally off subject. I just like before and after photos.

Tonight, I plan to finish the stairs to the back yard and get the small staircase towards the front yard finished, as well. I don't believe that this is underestimation at work here. But, only time will tell. After that? Privacy wall and deck rails.

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I'm difficult to explain, but I will attempt. I am a fantastic husband, father, and employee. I have an amazing array of talents. I never stop leaving others in awe with my actions. I love my life, because my life is so great that it's virtually impossible not to love it. Finally, I also have a fair amount of self esteem. And people say that I'm often sarcastic but I don't know why.